FW: CHINA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT REPORT - 2

Fri Mar 10 14:57:10 EST 2006

Dear Christina,

I downloaded the report, but then saw that it has 504 pages. The executive
summary alone is 60 pages. Ron Kostoff really is a prolific author and he is
also a good friend.

For the recent paper in Research Policy 35(1) (2006) 83-104, Ping Zhou and I
used also SCI data. We did not find the same strength for China as Ron, but
still considerably. We also used 2004 data because it takes a while before a
paper is published.

I believe Dr. Leydesdorff  and Dr. Zhou used a Chinese-language,
Chinese-produced scientific database to examine the representation of
journals and citations in SCI.  One of their findings was the Chinese
journal articles cited western journal articles but western journal articles
did not (for the most part) cite Chinese journals.  Accordingly, the list of
Chinese journals (like Table ES2) provided in the reference is not very
meaningful.

The reference is: Zhou, Ping & Loet Leydesdorff,
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/cstpcd/index.htm> A Comparison between the China
Scientific and Technical Papers and Citations Database and the Science
Citation Index in terms of journal hierarchies and inter-journal citation
relations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology (forthcoming); < <http://www.leydesdorff.net/cstpcd/cstpcd.pdf>
pdf-version>

One other note:  it appears that they've used automatic clustering and text
matching to assign subject categories.  I suppose a similar clustering
technique might be used to solve the conundrum of ISI's assigned subject
categories?

Unfortunately, this is not so easy. For example, there are many clustering
algorithms and one has to reason why one should use the one or the other.
Obvious, you and I share some interests because I wrote also on this subject
about a year ago:  <http://www.leydesdorff.net/classif03/index.htm> Can
Scientific Journals be Classified in terms of Aggregated Journal-Journal
Citation Relations using the Journal Citation Reports? Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology (forthcoming). <
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/classif03/classif03.pdf> pdf-version>

With best wishes,  Loet

Do others have similar problems or am I not getting it?

Thanks,

Christina K. Pikas, MLS
R.E. Gibson Library & Information Center
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Voice  240.228.4812 (Washington), 443.778.4812 (Baltimore)
Fax 443.778.5353

  _____

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Eugene Garfield
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 10:55 AM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: [SIGMETRICS] FW: CHINA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT REPORT - 2

FROM: Dr. Ronald N. Kostoff (Office of Naval Research)

 Kostoff, Ronald [KOSTOFR at ONR.NAVY.MIL]

SUBJ: China Science and Technology Assessment Report

A report on the structure and infrastructure of Chinese science and
technology (1) is now available for downloading
(http://www.onr.navy.mil/sci_tech/special/354/technowatch/textmine.asp).
Highlights of the report include:

OUTPUT PERFORMANCE

*       China's output of research articles has expanded dramatically in the
last decade (articles published in the Science Citation Index)

*       China is among the research output leaders, especially in critical
technologies (e.g., nanotechnology, energetic materials)

*       China's major research collaborators are, in order: USA, Japan,
Germany, England, Canada, Australia

*       China-USA collaboration emphasizes biomedical first and
nanotechnology second, whereas China-Japan collaboration reverses this
priority

*       There are critical research and technology sub-areas where China
leads the USA in absolute numbers of research articles published.  In these
areas, China has at least four times the relative investment emphasis as the
USA, since total USA articles are four times the number of total China
articles.

*       Relative to the USA, China emphasizes the hard sciences that
underpin defense and commercial needs

*       Relative to China, the USA emphasizes medical, psychological, and
social problem research areas

*       China's research articles can be assigned to four major categories:
Physics/ Materials (13966 records); Life Sciences (7377); Mathematics
(7162); Chemistry (5841)

CITATION IMPACT PERFORMANCE

*       Chinese researchers publish in many Chinese journals, but cite very
few Chinese journals

*       Chinese researchers publish in low Impact Factor journals, but cite
relatively high Impact Factor journals (Impact Factor measures a journal's
ability to attract citations)

*       Chinese researchers publish in much lower Impact Factor journals
than do USA researchers

*       China-USA collaboration doubles citation impact of Chinese authors

*       China's research impact was larger than India's in all major
research categories (Physical/ Environmental/ Materials/ Life Sciences, as
measured by median of top ten cited articles in each sub-area, for technical
sub-areas of similar research output)

*       China's research impact was smaller than Australia's in all major
research categories

*       Global nanotechnology researchers cite only a handful of Chinese
journals with significant numbers, and even these journals have two orders
of magnitude less citations than the leading international journals

As the above and other studies have shown, aggregate country publication
productivity and citation impact results can be somewhat misleading.
Publications and citation impact in critical technologies and
sub-technologies are most important, and should serve as the basis for
publication and citation comparison.

RNK

REFERENCES

1.  Kostoff RN, Briggs, MB, Rushenberg, RL, Bowles, CA, Pecht, M.  The
structure and infrastructure of Chinese science and technology.  DTIC
Technical Report ADA443315 (http://www.dtic.mil/).  Defense Technical
Information Center.  Fort Belvoir, VA.  2006.

A downloadable version of the report's final draft is available at
<http://www.onr.navy.mil/sci_tech/special/354/technowatch/textmine.asp>
http://www.onr.navy.mil/sci_tech/special/354/technowatch/textmine.asp

Go to ninth report listed.  Click on PDF version.

2.  The views in this report are solely those of the authors, and do not
represent the views of the Department of the Navy or any of its components,
DDL-OMNI Engineering, LLC, or the University of Maryland.

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